WWI re-enactment coming to Rockford’s Midway Village
When World War I started in 1914, French, German, Russian and British generals were still using strategies dating to the Napoleonic Wars fought a century earlier. Helmets, for example, were made of leather — if they were used at all.
But those techniques proved highly ineffective against machine guns and artillery, resulting in huge numbers of casualties in what soon became a war of attrition. At the Battle of the Somme in France, English generals sent wave after wave of soldiers out of fortified trenches into withering fire, which resulted in casualties topping more than 1 million.
By the time the war ended in 1918, more than 9 million combatants were dead, including more than 100,000 Americans.
Hundreds of WWI reenactors will gather April 8-9 at the 148-acre Midway Village Museum, 6799 Guilford Road, Rockford, Ill., to skirmish in mock battles and teach visitors about what came to be known as the War to End All Wars.
It’s fitting that Rockford be the site for what museum spokeswoman Lonna Converso said is the largest WWI educational re-enactment in the country. That’s because many of the Yanks from this region who fought in the war were mobilized and trained at Camp Grant, now the site of Rockford’s airport.
One of the highlights of the re-enactment is 150 yards of trenches that are 6 to 8 feet deep and up to 8 feet wide. Converso said they were dug to show how soldiers fought and lived in bunkers built in the trenches during the war. In addition, she said the museum’s 13-acre village and its 26 buildings, which usually represent a 1900-era Midwest community, have been transformed into a French village on the Western Front.
“In addition to soldiers dressed in French, German, British and Russian uniforms, we will also have people in costume representing civilians who lived during the war,” said Converso, who noted that the re-enactment has been recognized by the World War I Centennial Commission. She said the two-day event is expected to draw more than 1,600 visitors this year.
“This fits in really well with our mission to educate and preserve our history,” she said.
Now in its fifth year, she said the re-enactment was started to highlight the 100th anniversary of the start of the Great War.
Converso said some of the clothing and equipment used by participants is original, though most are replicas. Visitors can talk to the re-enactors, observe battles, listen to period music and attend lectures on the war. In addition, artifacts from the period will be on display.
She said re-enactors also have built an armored, narrow-gauge “trench train” like ones used to supply British soldiers with ammunition, food and water, and take out the dead and wounded. The Midway Village trench bunker, which has a wood floor and paneling, was built to sleep 16 soldiers in bunkbeds.
Another highlight is a film buff who will operate and show movies with original 1910 equipment, she said.
In addition to the narrated battles and tours, there will be live calvary horses on display, suffragette marches and demonstrations by Salvation Army “Donut Dollies,” women who worked in canteens behind the front lines and served servicemen donuts and other food.
Dave Fornell, an Elgin, Ill., resident and re-enactment coordinator, said American soldiers didn’t fight much in the war until 1918 because they arrived in Europe woefully under-supplied and unprepared. When they did enter the fray at Cartigny, France, the U.S. First Division performed well against the Germans and earned the respect of the French and English.
“By the time the United States got involved, all the others were tired out and reached their limits,” he said. “Americans meant fresh blood and were backed by our heavy industry. They helped swing the war effort in favor of the Allies.”
Fornell said he will be a unit commander for a Prussian reserve infantry unit during the two-day event, but will also fill in as a French soldier as needed for other battles and skirmishes. A collector of World War I and II memorabilia for a quarter century, he said the Great War represents “an interesting bit of history.
“It’s relevant because the seeds were planted then for a lot of what happened during the 20th century and even what we are dealing with today. Mistakes made at the end of WWI led to the second World War. The roots for the wars in the Balkans, strife in the Middle East and even radical Islam can be traced in part to decisions that were made in 1918 and 1919 and the way borders were drawn.”
Fornell said war was also a huge agent for change around the globe and led to the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia.
“It was a major cause for change in many ways,” he said, noting that re-enactors will have a full-size Renault FT-17 light tank on display as well as a German Fokker Eindecker fighter aircraft, the first mass-produced plane designed to shoot down other aircraft.
“WWI changed the scale of war, how armies fought, and it had a lot of other repercussions, too. For visitors, this will be a great way for them to get a glimpse at a war that happened more than a century ago.”
More information: Hours for the re-enactment are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. April 8 and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on April 9. Admission is $10 for adults and $5 for kids 3-17.
The museum also has been hosting a WWII reenactment for the past 21 years that draws 1,300 reenactors and 9,000 visitors each September.
For more information, see midwayvillage.com.
For other things to see and do in Rockford, see gorockford.com.
Getting there: Rockford’s Midway Village Museum is about 90 miles southwest of Milwaukee via I-43 and I-90.